


it's a different sun on Mars

by torigates



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-29
Updated: 2011-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The surface of Mars is uninhabitable. M’gann spent her entire life before coming to Earth underground never knowing what she was missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a different sun on Mars

  
The surface of Mars is uninhabitable. M’gann spent her entire life before coming to Earth underground never knowing what she was missing.

(She read once that Superman used the sun’s rays to draw his strength, and the first time she felt them on her skin she thought maybe she did too.)

-

M’gann loved her new home. Earth was everything she dreamed it would be and more. There was so much to see and do and _watch_ , she walked around those first weeks in a daze, soaking it all up.

J’onn took her to visit so many wonderful places. They saw the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids. They were nothing like the wonders on Mars, the hollow crevices, the sprawling caves, the red red dirt. Mars was nothing like Earth, and that was part of why M’gann loved it so much. She wanted to sink her feet into this planet, grow roots.

-

There was closeness between people on Mars that she missed. She missed the intimacy, the honesty. The way she could reach out at any moment and know there would be someone there.

It was hard without that on Earth.

Everything seemed quieter. She couldn’t get used to only the sound of her own voice in her head. Sometimes she’d reach out and catch snippets, emotions from her friends, from passersby.

 _I need to buy milk_ or _Did I remember to call mom?_

Sometimes even though she knew it was wrong and she shouldn’t do it, M’gann would go to the park or a busy street and just open up her mind.

She wanted to hear the other voices.

-

The walls of Mount Justice are wide. Sometimes M’gann imagined that she could hear the entire history of it.

She convinced Superboy to explore the entire cave with her, until they knew it front and back.

She watched the way Conner would remove himself from conversations about Superman, and felt an ache in her chest for him. No one should have to be alone like that. No one should be rejected by their family like that. It made her miss her own family, her own home. Sometimes she wanted to go back to Mars so badly and sit with her mother and father, her sisters and brothers, cousins and aunts and uncles. She wanted to be surrounded by and reassured by their love.

But she had love here too.

Superman didn’t like Conner? Well fine, M’gann decided she didn’t like Superman.

Whenever his name came up in conversation, she would reach out for Conner’s hand. Sometimes he squeezed her fingers too tight, but she never said anything.

-

It was the mundane things M’gann loved most about Earth. Perhaps that was a little bit strange considering she lived a life of crime and intrigue that most people would envy, but it was true.

She liked to make coffee in the morning. She liked to cook, and go to school, go for walks in the park, and watch movies with her boyfriend.

She liked kicking crime’s ass too, but sometimes it was nice to just be still. To just take it in.

Sometimes she thought that was what made her and Conner such a good fit. They were both brand new on the planet, both getting used to everything that went on around them.

She liked that they got to experience so many things for the first time together.

-

M’gann loved going on missions. She loved the way the team worked together like a synchronized machine. She loved the way her teammates worked, and she loved to work with them.

Making a difference, being a hero, well, that wasn’t bad either.

She never felt so alive as when she was fighting. It was when she felt most confident, most sure of herself. She was able to forget for a little while that she was different.

She had dreamed of coming to Earth for so long, of her place here, that she had never stopped to consider the challenges of being the only one like her. J’onn had warned her, but she had never really understood what that meant. Could never really understand.

She would always be different, other, _alien_.

She was good on missions. She helped. She fit in with her team, and they needed her as much as she needed them.

On missions they worked together, moved together, and M’gann didn’t have to be the only one inside her head.

-

M’gann was never alone on Mars. There was always someone around, her family, her friends.

It was different on Earth. People were concerned with things like privacy, being alone.

She found that hard to get used to. Sometimes, she thought it meant that people didn’t like her. Sometimes, she thought it meant that _Artemis_ didn’t like her. It made her nervous. Artemis made her nervous. M’gann was always worried about doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing.

She was so cool and confident, and M’gann just wanted Artemis to like her.

Finally, one day Artemis looked over at her and just said, “Stop _hovering_ ,” and M’gann dropped down to ground, feet firmly planted underneath her. She felt herself relax.

She had a lot of family back home. A lot of friends. She never had a best friend before.

-

When she used to dream about coming to Earth, M’gann imagined all the ways it would be different. The climate, the plants, the food, the animals. She imagined seeing and doing a million things that she had never done before.

And when she came to Earth, she did those things. She loved those things. She loved to sit in the sun and soak up it’s heat, or stand outside in the rain, or go for a walk on a cool fall day. She loved to have flowers at Mount Justice, and she wanted to grow a garden. She ate every different kind of food she could get her hands on, and cooked most of it herself. She loved Wolf, and she went to the zoo.

It was everything she dreamed it would be, and more.

But when it came down to it, it was the things that were the same that she loved the most. She loved that Wally’s laugh reminded her of her brother, and that Robin’s glee was like her sister, and that Artemis’ wit was like her mother, and Kaldur’s steadfastness was like her uncle J’onn.

Her family here was her family there.

On Mars they never saw the sun, but its warmth still shone down.


End file.
